A cartoon by the Iranian artist Touka Neyestani shows Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in an 'I love New York' T-shirt. Click for full picture. Photograph: Touka Neyestani/International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran

An Iranian MP has criticised the country's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, for taking more than a hundred people with him to the UN general assembly in New York, saying the large entourage had travelled there for "a picnic".

At a time when many Iranians are struggling with economic hardship because of sanctions, almost 140 people have joined their president in his final visit to New York. Most of them are staying at the city's luxurious Warwick hotel, where suites can cost up to £1,000 a night.

The president is expected to address the general assembly on Wednesday in a speech that is highly anticipated by both his opponents in Iran and those watching him for any hint about the country's disputed nuclear programme or Tehran's support for Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria.

Initially, visas had been requested for some 160 people, but the semi-official Fars news agency reported that about 20 applications were turned down, including those for members of his cabinet and two ministers. Other Iranian sources, however, have put the numbers of those banned from US trip as high as 60.

Ahmadinejad's chief of staff and close confidant, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, who is despised by the rival conservatives as the head of a "deviant current" within the president's inner circle, and the foreign minister Ali Akbar Salehi are accompanying him for the UN visit.

In recent days, Iranian parliamentarians and media have spoken against the number of people travelling along with Ahmadinejad to the US, a country Iranian leaders depict as their sworn enemy.

"Many of [the people accompanying the president] have only travelled there for a picnic," protested the deputy head of the parliamentary committee on national security, Mansour Haghighatpour, according to the semi-official Ilna news agency.

It is not the first time Ahmadinejad has come under fire for taking many of his allies to such a high-profile visit. He has faced criticism in previous years for having his staff's families along with him abroad.

A prominent Iranian cartoonist, Touka Neyestani, reacted by publishing a cartoon on the website of the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, depicting Ahmadinejad wearing an "I love New York" T-shirt.

On Tuesday, a video showing Ahmadinejad reacting to the uproar about his companions while passing through gates at the UN also fuelled controversy. Many web users who shared the video on social networking websites said the president had sworn at his opponents while others insisted his words were, in fact, not clear.

Ahmadinejad is in his final year of office and under the current Iranian law cannot run for a third term. After a series of setbacks in a power struggle with conservatives, especially over his staunch support for Mashaei, the president has lost a great deal of influence over Iranian politics, prompting many to view him as an increasingly lame duck, but despite his dwindling power at home, he is still grabbing headlines outside.

While in New York, the Iranian president gave interviews to the American media, including CNN's Piers Morgan, and invited a group of journalists for a breakfast meeting which the New Yorker's David Remnick said was promoted as an exchange of ideas but turned out "to be a group interview".

In response to Morgan's questions about his views on homosexuality, Ahmadinejad said: "I'm sorry. Let me ask you this. Do you believe that anyone is giving birth through homosexuality? Homosexuality ceases procreation. Who has said that if you like or believe in doing something ugly, and others do not accept your behaviour, that they're denying your freedom?"

In reaction to Ahmadinejad's comments, the Iranian journalist Omid Memarian tweeted: "#Ahmadinejad's response to #gay issue was not much different than what Romney or Santorum might h[ave] said."

Reacting to Remnick's question about an Iranian institute recently raising the bounty on the head of Salman Rushdie amid controversy over an anti-Islam film, Ahmadinejad responded: "Salman Rushdie, where is he now? … There is no news of him. Is he in the United States? If he is in the US, you shouldn't broadcast that, for his own safety."

Ahmadinejad's visit to New York has also sparked demonstrations in front of his hotel and the UN headquarters.